


3D

by Toe



Category: Quest Friends! (Podcast)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Bands, Alternate Universe - High School, ao3 let me capitalize Xoc you cowards, mostly gen but there are hints of Xoc/Misha bc that's just how they are, nerdy high school hop is so fun to write, obligatory i don't know much abt music past eight grade french horn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-09
Updated: 2018-08-09
Packaged: 2019-06-24 05:20:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,272
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15623439
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Toe/pseuds/Toe
Summary: Xoc, Misha, Hop, and Elee participate in their high school's battle of the bands. Inspired by the tumblr ask about what instruments each character would play.





	3D

The bold red lettering of the poster caught Xoc’s eye. He was immediately entranced, stopping dead in the middle of the hallway to read it even as other students swarmed around him, brushing along his back and knocking him with their elbows as they passed. It advertised a Battle of the Bands, auditions Friday after school in the auditorium, only three days away.

Misha stopped with him and peered at the poster over his shoulder. “This battling bands sounds like an enjoyable event.”

“It does,” Xoc agreed, though he wasn’t actually sure how to feel about it. Having been homeschooled for most of his life, he didn’t have much perspective on school events, but he trusted Misha.

“Do you play an instrument, Xoc?”

He nodded. “I took piano lessons for a number of years. I haven’t played in months, though.”

“If you want to play again, you should sign up,” Misha encouraged.

“Oh, no, that’s-- that’s not why I was looking--”

“Perhaps I could join you,” Misha said. “It’s such a coincidence. Recently, I acquired an instrument for myself and I have been wanting to learn how to play it.”

“Yes. Let’s play together,” Xoc said, because even though earlier he hadn’t been sure if the Battle of the Bands sounded fun, he knew that with Misha, it would be.

“Hi. Excuse me, did I hear you say you were forming a group to participate in the Battle of the Bands? Do you have room for another member?” a boy dressed in all brown asked. Xoc, unsurprisingly, didn’t know him. Xoc didn’t know many people.

Xoc and Misha exchanged a look, questioning each other telepathically. “Uh, sure. The more the merrier,” Xoc decided.

“Sorry, but do we know you?” Misha asked.

“Oh, no. I guess I forgot to introduce myself. Hopper Scotch. Pleased to meet you.”

“It is a pleasure to meet you as well, Hopper Scotch. My nomenclature is Misha Jarvis, although you may call me Misha, as I find most people prefer to call others by shorter names.”

“And I’m Xoc.”

He extended his hand after Xoc and Misha recited their names, and both of them reached out to take it. They spent a mess of seconds knocking knuckles as they extended and retracted their hands, eventually settling into an awkward three-way handshake that lasted a moment too long.

“What instrument do you play, Hopper Scotch?” Misha asked.

Hop’s ears turned pink. “I call it a harmonicalculator. It’s a calculator, but it’s been modified so it’s more like a melodica. It’s cool, though. I promise it’s really cool. It’s like a different way of conceptualizing mathematical equations. That probably doesn’t sound cool. I’m going to stop talking now.”

“It certainly sounds unique,” Misha said.

“Yeah, I’m interested to hear what an instrument like that would sound like,” Xoc agreed.

Just then, the bell rang to signal the end of the passing period.

Hop, who had been bright red a moment ago, went pale. “I-- I’m going to go. This is my first time ever being tardy.”

“We can meet in the practice rooms after school,” Xoc called over his shoulder as he and Misha hurried to class.

\--

After their final class let out, Xoc and Misha rushed to the practice rooms to secure themselves a room with a keyboard. Their haste paid off; the first room they checked was free. Xoc sat himself down on the bench at the piano while Misha claimed a plastic chair, dropping their backpack near their feet.

Xoc checked the time on his phone. It hadn’t been even two minutes since the final bell had rung. They probably had a good couple minutes before Hopper would show up.

“Misha, what is this instrument you want to play?” Xoc asked.

“I am glad you asked.” With a flourish, Misha produced from their backpack a kazoo. It was surprisingly nice for a kazoo, made of a golden metal instead of brittle plastic in primary colors like the kind you might find in a pinata at a child’s birthday party, which was what he would expect from a kazoo.

Still, it was a kazoo.

“Would you like me to play it for you?” Misha asked. Xoc nodded.

Misha launched into a rendition of a Backstreet Boys song. It was uncertain and often off-key and colored with that ridiculous kazoo texture. A genuine grin crept onto Xoc’s face.

Xoc had taken years of piano lessons. He had spent countless hours limping up and down scales, practicing different pieces on each hand independently before he could even try practicing on both together, and even then, it was wash, rinse, repeat until his teacher had been satisfied that he had perfected all of the dynamics. For him, music had been a grind. He wouldn’t have said he hated playing, exactly, but he’d never liked it much, either.

It was different listening to Misha stumble their way through a pop song just so that the two of them could play together. In that moment, he knew that music could be fun and he fell in love, a little.

After they had finished, Misha timidly lowered the kazoo from their face. “What do you think?”

“I loved it,” Xoc said, and for a moment, the two just smiled at each other.

Hop knocked at the door before entering, followed by a short girl with a fierce scowl. “Hi. I brought another potential band member, if you think we could use one.”

“I’m Elee,” the girl said. Unlike when Hop had introduced himself, Elee didn’t offer her hand.

“See, Mr. Mako, the anatomy teacher, he’s one of the judges so he’s giving extra credit to anyone who participates and we both need it,” Hop explained.

“Don’t you have an A in the class?” Elee asked.

“Well, yeah, but it’s nice to have a buffer. Just to be safe.”

“What sort of music do you play, Elee?” Misha asked.

“I’m really good at hitting stuff.”

Xoc tilted his head as he tried to parse her words. “Do you mean like percussion?”

“Sure,” Elee said with a shrug.

“With the current composition of our band, it would certainly be useful to add in percussion instruments,” Misha said.

“My vote is for as well.” Xoc gave a thumbs up.

Hop clapped once. “It’s unanimous, then. Welcome to the band.”

“Perfect. I’ll go steal stuff from the band nerds, then.” Hop looked perturbed at that, but before anyone could protest, she was gone.

Defeated, Hop took a seat next to Misha. “Have you guys been practicing?” he asked.

“A little. I was just showing Xoc here my treasured kazoo which I have recently purchased.” Misha held the kazoo out for Hopper to inspect. He leaned in closer, then nodded politely.

“It’s a great sound,” Xoc promised. Hop didn’t seem convinced.

“Sure, uh. Glass houses, I guess. So, why don’t I show you guys my instrument?”

Hop’s harmonicalculator was essentially a graphing calculator that had grown a tentacle. The screen had been gouged out, though, and in its place was a strip of zebra print duct tape covering a foreign bony structure. Hopper pressed at a few of the keys in the rhythm of a song, but it didn’t produce any sound.

“What is that coming out from the top of your calculator?” Misha asked.

“That’s the mouthpiece. Looks kind of weird, doesn’t it?”

It took a worryingly long time for Elee to return with a snare drum held aloft like a trophy and a pair of cymbals tucked under her arm. “Spoils of war,” she announced, and Xoc had serious doubts as to whether or not she was being hyperbolic.

“So… shall we…. jam?” Xoc asked. He had never played music with anyone else before, save for when his teacher would play one hand of a song and he would play the other. He had no idea what to do with this group of people he had accidentally assembled.

"I guess I can start," Hop offered. He ran his fingers thoughtfully across the keys of his harmonicalculator. "What style of music do you guys play? Like, what genre?"

"I've mostly learned classical pieces. I don't care for them,' Xoc said.

"I have only just begun to learn how to play my instrument, so I have not yet established any sort of preferential style," Misha said.

Elee shrugged. "I'm fluent in hitting things in any genre."

"That's not very helpful," Hop sighed. "I guess we could try something more upbeat. I mean, I usually think of bands as having an energy to them, you know?"

"We play post-alternative ironic mockstep punkbeat rockcore," Elee declared.

Hop grimaced. "Sorry, but what is that?"

"Nothing, probably. We have the privilege of defining it."

"Huh. I like it. Still not helpful, but I like it. Alright, how do trigonometric functions work for you?" Hop lifted the mouthpiece to his lips and started playing a unique, dizzy melody. There were moments where it spun and stumbled on itself, but it resolved with gymnastic brilliance. Hop repeated the melody, giving the rest of the group meaningful looks.

Misha followed his lead, humming the same melody into their kazoo, the buzzing creating a sharp contrast with the smooth notes of the harmonicalculator. Xoc joined shortly after, tentatively testing different chords and cringing when most of them ended up being irredeemably dissonant.

Then Elee joined in, and with one great cymbal crash, everything stopped.

“What, no good?” Elee asked.

“I did not expect for you to make such a loud sound,” Misha said.

“Yes. Very unexpected,” Hop agreed. Elee didn’t seem impressed with this explanation, setting the cymbals down with a resounding clatter to cross her arms.

“Let’s build up to the cymbals,” Xoc suggested. “Start with something a little softer while we’re trying to coordinate.”

“I should probably start with something simpler, too,” Hop said. “Other than that, I have the pythagorean rhythm, pi-fi, or the mandelbrot melody, and that’s all, actually, but I can learn more.”

“Know anything that’s not based on math?” Elee asked.

Scandalized, Hop protectively pulled the calculator in closer to his chest.

By the end of the first practice, the band had figured out how to play together. They still had their flaws; Hop tended to be inflexible, easily flustered when he tried to deviate from his rehearsed melodies; Misha would usually follow either him or Xoc instead of creating their own part; Xoc could only reproduce what he composed in his head with fifty percent accuracy; and Elee didn’t care to be anything but loud; but they were listening to each other. Coordinating, or at least trying to.

\--

“We need a band name for the sign up sheet,” Hop announced. “I wanted to try signing us up early to make sure we have a spot, but we need a band name. Also, there were a lot of spots left, otherwise I would have just improvised something and none of us would be happy with that. I don’t really know how we want to present our group.”

“You think an awful lot, Hopper Scotch,” Misha said.

“Uh. Sorry? I guess?”

“I’d like it if our name was something fun,” Xoc said. 

“Like parties or fireworks?” Misha asked.

“Hey, yeah. Something with party could be good. It works on another level, too, since we’re a party.” Hop brought out a pen and a notebook. He hunched over his lap, taking fastidious notes.

“The Dumbasses. Self-deprecation is fun, right?” Elee said.

“Dumbbutts,” Hop corrected. “We are in school, so we should avoid anything too profane.”

“I withdraw my suggestion.”

“I also would prefer not to be called a dumb ass,” Misha said.

Xoc chewed on his lip and stared at the wall. Party was a good start, but everything he tried pairing it with sounded inelegant even to his own ears, and he wasn’t much for artistic flourish. Everyone else had gone silent, too. The room was filled with furrowed brows and small frowns.

"Let's access the datasphere. Maybe it can help us," Xoc suggested. He pulled out his phone and started poking at it.

"Datasphere? What's that?" Hop asked.

"It's a sphere and once you open it, you can ask it questions to access all sorts of data. See?" Xoc held his phone out towards Hop.

"That's the Chrome logo."

"Datasphere," Xoc said with jazzhands for added emphasis. A quick search brought him to a band name generator. “Ghost Jaws. Cannibal Factory. Ordinary Project.”

“Charming,” Hop said. He didn’t take any notes.

“Desperate Flunkers,” Elee said. “It’s true to our origins.”

“I would have to disagree. It seems to me that that name would only be true to your origin, Elee,” Misha said.

“So then-- I know our Hopper is here as a hopeless nerd, but why are you two in the band?” Elee asked.

Xoc and Misha looked at each other for a moment before Xoc shrugged. “For fun, I guess.”

“Huh.” Elee stared at them, mystified. “I can’t tell if that’s admirable or deranged.”

“I’m not sure what you mean by that. It truly has been fun to play music with all of you so far,” Misha said.

Elee’s expression softened. She opened her mouth as if to reply, but no words came out.

“I like the idea of doing something oblique, with a deeper meaning to it that isn’t obvious,” Hop said. “Or maybe we could do something that makes us sound like a crew of badass pirates.”

“Toothrot and Scurvy,” Elee said.

“Buccaneer sounds kind of bouncy. Maybe we could use that,” Xoc suggested.

“Brave Buccaneers. Happy Buccaneers. Look Out Everybody, It’s Buccaneer Time,” Misha tried.

“Fuckin Buccaneers,” Elee said. “You get that sound repetition. It’s nice. Fuccaneers for short”

Hop gave Elee a withering look. She held up her hands in a sign of defeat.

“Actually, thinking about it more, I don’t feel like we’re in a place where I’d feel comfortable taking something so thematic as our identity,” Xoc said. “At this point, we’re pretty much an ill-defined mess.”

“Ill-Defined Mess!” Elee crowed. “There’s your band name!”

Hop sighed. “Still kind of mean, but I’ll put it down.”

“Ill-Defined Buccaneers?” Misha suggested.

“We’re past buccaneers. Elee ruined it for everyone,” Xoc said, earning himself a light clock on the head from one of Elee’s drumsticks.

“Would you shoot it down immediately if I suggested something math related?” Hop asked.

“Yes,” Elee said.

At the same time, Misha said, “Of course not. I’d love to hear any suggestions you might have.”

“Yes,” Elee asserted once again.

“Super Laser Bandits,” Xoc said, though it was without any conviction.

“3D,” Elee decided. “For daring, desperate, and deluded.”

“That does sound fun. Makes me think of movies and bright colors and art coming to life,” Xoc said.

“I like it, too,” Misha agreed.

“It also has kind of a sci-fi vibe to it. I can dig it. Plus, you get your self-deprecation.” Hop snapped his notebook shut and stowed it in his bag. “So I guess it’s settled. We’re 3D.”

\--

They sustained the last note of the Pythagorean Rhythm, cutting off cleanly behind a cymbal crash from Elee. As the crisp reverberations settled, they fell into a reverent silence.

“That was… not bad,” Hop said. “I think we have our audition song figured out. Of course, the actual competition will require three and only one can be a cover, so we’ll have to figure out another one from scratch if we make it that far, or we could use one of my other songs. I would prefer one of my other songs. We are in a bit of a time crunch.”

“I must confess that I’m nervous about tomorrow,” Misha said. “I have never been on a stage before.”

“Closest I’ve come is class presentations,” Hop agreed.

“I’ve played a few recitals before,” Xoc offered. “They made me wear button down shirts and I had to sit in a row for hours as the other students played the same five pieces. Every year they’d rotate, but they were always the same.”

“I see,” Misha said. “So we will be more prepared if we wear button down shirts.”

“No,” Hop said.

\--

The four members of the band sat in a neat line against the wall of the backstage hallway, listening as the band in the slot before them played. They were good, featuring musical mainstays like vocals and guitars that worked together to form a cohesive sound.

Misha clutched at their kazoo with both of their hands and stared down at their lap. There weren’t any clocks backstage, but Xoc could have sworn they were suspended in time, that the band outside was playing an eternal song, that Misha had worried their nails over the kazoo an infinite number of times.

Xoc bumped his shoulder against Misha’s. Misha looked up at him and gave a smile and they both silently agreed to pretend like the other wasn’t a nervous wreck because they were in this together.

There was a crescendo as the music outside came to an explosive finish, followed by the humming of voices just far away enough to be indistinct, then all too soon, the other band marched past them, nodding and smiling at them in acknowledgement.

“3D, YOU’RE UP!” Mako called.

Xoc nodded reassuringly at Misha. “Let’s go.”

A grand piano, a drum set, and a littering of chairs and music stands formed a semicircle in the middle of the stage, casting menacing shadows in the harsh light of the stage. Squinting out at the audience, Xoc could barely make out Mako and Mauve sitting in the front row.

“Is that the drum missing from the band room?” Mauve asked with a frown.

“Nope,” Elee said, her response too quick to be genuine.

Hop cleared his throat as if to cover that exchange. “Anyway, today we’ll be playing The Pythagorean Rhythm.”

“Feel free to begin.”

\--

“That’s the worst music I’ve heard in quite some time!” Mr. Mako boomed, his voice too large for even the auditorium. “You’ve got an unconventional style and a lot of heart, but that won’t cut it for our competition!”

“We still get the extra credit, though, right?” Elee asked.

“Sure!”

A dull whining eclipsed every other thought in Xoc’s head. This was the end. This was what all those hours of work over the last few days had amounted to, and it had been fun but now it had ended and he wasn’t sure quite what to make of that.

Xoc shuffled off the stage in a contemplative stupor, following the other band members and only half processing any platitudes about trying again next year from Mauve and Mako.

The next band was called out, leaving the backstage area empty. Misha froze there in the middle of the hallway.

“Are you alright?” Xoc asked.

“I wanted to get farther. I didn’t think we would win, but I wanted to participate in the actual competition.”

“It would have been nice to see some payoff for our work,” Hop agreed. “Uh, but getting better is its own reward, right?”

“I suppose I do feel as though I have taken great steps towards mastering the kazoo,” Misha admitted.

“And there’s the extra credit, so at least Hopper and I got what we came for,” Elee said.

“We don’t have to stop playing,” Xoc said, and that felt right to him. A better resolution. More time to spend making music with the group instead of just this disappointment.

Hop patted Misha’s back reassuringly. “Yeah. We could always practice more for next year, right?” He shot a meaningful glance at Elee.

“With you losers?” Elee scoffed. “Any time.”

**Author's Note:**

> thanks so much for reading!!!!!! tbh this is the shortest possible incarnation of this story. as i was writing, i felt like there was a novella/novel length story here waiting to be explored. right now, i’m v excited to share and i have a couple other creative projects to worry about, so you’re getting the short version, but later, when we know more about character backstories and such, i want to revisit this idea, flesh out the lives of the characters in this au, focus more on interpersonal development, bring in more npcs. Let me know in the comments what you’d like to see in a revamped version of this story!


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